Smoke-consuming furnace.



9.. Lox. SMOKE CONSUMING FURNACE.

ARRLlC/TION FILED OCT.28,1914.

LSOKQL Patented Apr. 29,1919.

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OSCAR LOX, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Apr. 20, 191.0.

Application led October 28, 1914. Serial No. 869,003.

To all whom t may concern Be it known that 1, Oscar Lox, a citizen oftheUnited States, and a resident of Chicago, in the county of Cook andState of Illinois, have invented certain new and use-v ful Improvementsin Smoke-Consuming` Furnaces, of which the following is a speci- Y fication.

My invention relates to smoke consuming devices and has particularreference to injectors of air. The objects of the invention are toimprove the operation and at the same time simplify the construction ofair conduits for the purpose of attaining results that have been soughtbut not attained by prior constructions and to provide a Workableconstruction and arrangement of the suction siphoning` orvacuum-producing device.

I am aivare that numerous devices have heretofore been designed for thepurpose of injecting air and steam into a furnace, as eX- emplified byPatents Nos. 100,947, 260,824, 320,906, 505,461, 654,175, 661,760,596,024, 807,976, 586,477, 609,225, 317,775, 740,743 and others usingsteam jets, steam and cold air, steam and liot air, etc. The priorefforts in this direction have had the common object of getting air intothe furnace above the bed of fuel in their various Ways as though steamand air were fuel and the main consideration Were to get these elementsinto the furnace by other routes than through the grate-bars- Theseprior inventions shoW arrangements of more or less nu lmerous steam andair jets directed in all directions above the bed of fuel With little,if consideration of the usual operation of i With hollouT grate-bars,draftarrangements from ash-pit to bridge Wall or smoke-stack, etc.,`hence in many instances the alleged smoke consuming devices haveincluded means for retarding the draft, which could more simply beIaccomplished by closing the usual draft doors than by providingretarding bridge-Walls and the like. While steam-jets and cold or hotair `injections above the fuel have in many cases diminished smokingthey have generally been rejected because they have also lowered thetemperature of the furnace, interfered With the draft and made it harderfor the fireman to produce thenecessary amount of steam pressure.However these devices are in use 'to some extent Where lsmoke must beprevented at 'whatever costd r1l`he presentinvention contemplates asimple construction and arrangement which will inject `heated air abovethe bed of fuel without disturbing the usual operation of a furnace',which includes an uninterrupted draft from the ash-pit to the smokestack. ln fact the present construction and arrangement is designed tonot only leave undis turbed the old functions or operations but to aidthem While with the aid of heated air and dry steam for siphoningpurposes effecting` the consumption of smoke Without arresting' thelatter in its usual travel for that purpose. ther contemplates the useof fresh heated air and not a partly choking combination of air, gasesof combustion and smoke drawn from the combustion chamber and returnedby means of an injector, experience having` taught that such jet-s orcurrents as are drawn fromV the combustion chamber Will not. accomplishthe object sought in an aeceptable manner if at all.

My invention consists in the novel construction, combination andarrangement of parts` all as hereinafter described in det-ail.illustrated in the accompanyingdrawing and incorporated in the appendedclaims.

1n the drawing- Figure 1 is a perspective vieiv of an arrangementembodying; my invention, the usual and Well knoivn furnace constructionfor a boiler being indicated by dotted lines to make the present.invention more plain.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged section taken substantially on line of Fig` 1,this section representing' one side the other side being substantiallyidentical.

In the several views 2, S, 4 and 5 represent sections which formsubstantially a continuous pipe having a mouth 6 opening into theash-pit and thence continuing through the side-Wall, the bridge wall,the opposite side Wall and the front Wall in which Walls the pipe isembedded to cause a `gradual and suificiently high heating of the airpassing through the pipe. The side Walls, which are usually brick Work,are indicated as 8 and 9 and the front Walljas 10. The circle 1.1represents the boiler or boiler opening. 12

. and 13 are the fire doors and 14 and 15 the The present invention furiThe nozzle are embedded in like manner in the side, bridge and frontwalls. The pipe 2 to 5 discharges through a pair of nozzles 22 and 23,the former being on a T 25 on the end of the section 5 and thelatterbeing on a cross interposed in the section 5 which consist of twopieces of piping connected by the cross. Into the branch of the cross 26alined with the nozzle 23 is threaded a hollow plug 27 through whichpasses a steam pipe 28 made steam tight with the usual stuffing boX 29.22 is similarly equipped with a The general idea of inserting end of asteam pipe in or near the discharge end of an airpipe is not claimed asnew. Vhat is claimed is the par ticular arrangement which effects theobject sought and which many others have failed to obtain, namely, toproduce a jet of air with the necessary power or force to accomplish theconsumption of smoke without fillsteam pipe. the discharge mg thecombustion chamber with saturated steam and thus retarding theconsumption of fuel, or reducing the number of heat units. i

The air-pipe 1S to 21 terminates in nozzles 3l and 32 the details ofwhich are substantially shown in Fig. 2 reversed. The steam pipes 28 and30 are supplied with steam from a pipe 33, which, in turn receives steamfrom a pipe 34c leading to the steam dome, as illustrated in several ofthe patents mentioned, it being essential that substantially dry steamor steam under the usual high pressure near its source be supplied tothe discharge ends of the steam pipes 28 and 30. Any suitable means inthe matter of the injector arrangement has been found by experience tobe inadequate for this purpose, nor does this purpose appear to beunderstood in any of the arrange ments where the chief concern has beento inject quantities rather than qualities of air and steam mixtures andin any direction regardless of the direction of the usual draftcurrents. The general idea in all the smoke con sumers referred to hasbeen to inject a liberal quantity of air or steam or both into the bodyof the carbon or gases of combus tion rising from the burning fuel thusstirring these elements together. This theory has proved ineffectual inpractice. In the present invention a blanket of highly heated air, as itwere, constantly moving in the direction of draft, is kept over thecombustion space or bed of fuel. This blanket of intensely hot air beingarranged substantially on a level with the top of the bridgewall, Itherefore arrange the inject-ors to discharge over and close to the topof the bridge-Wall as shown in Fig. 1. The present invention thereforedoes notdo what prior inventions purported to do, namely, burn smokewith heated air or steam, but it prevents the formation of smoke orunconsumed carbon by eliminating the comparatively cool area in whichsmoke is formed, or, in other words, covering it with a hot blanketformed by the jets of heated air and dry steam sufficient to provide therequired movement of this blanket in aid of the draft. After the blacksmoke or unconsumed carbon has been formed above the bed of fuel itcannot be consumed by anything short of the equivalent of an intenseflame, cokcd bed of coals through which it would pass, or air heatedinto a blue flame. This is why the many alleged smoke consuming deviceshave failed to consume smoke. A bed of live coals resting on the bridgeWall and on my injector nozzles would accomplish what my inventionaccomplishes if it could do it without interfering with the draft. Mysubstantially endless and rapidly moving canopy of heated air not onlysupplies enough heat from above to permit the furnace itself to burn thesmoke but aids the draft instead of interfering with it. Interferencewith the draft obviously lowers the normal efficiency of the furnace andwhere smoke is to some extent more or less accidentally prevented bydevices operating on the old theory, these devices require a largerfurnace and more consumption of fuel in order to produce the requirednumber of heat units. lVhere, as in the present opera tion, the normaldraft functions are aided by the heated cover, there will be a largesaving instead of waste of fuel.

As shown in Fig. l each of the air pipes traverses through all of thefour Walls beginning at the forward end of the ash pit. From the ash piteach pipe extends to a level above the grate bars, thence to the bridgewall, diagonally through the latter, thence through the opposite sidewall above the lgrate bars, and. finally, through the front wall to theinjectors. The pipe in each instance is embedded in the Wall about twoinches from its inner side which heats it with suflicient intensitywithout burning it up, as has been thoroughly demonstrated for aconsiderable period with an experimental device. The movement of heatedair through the pipe is aided by its arrangement whereby the paththrough the bridge wall is upwardly inclined and by the length of pipingsuccessively rising to a higher .level from intake to outlet which givesmomentum to the flow. Extending the pipe along all of the four walls ofthe furnace also gives ample time for gradually intensifying the heat ofthe air without burning up the pipe which serves as its conduit. Asshown in Fig. 2 the nozzles are embedded in the wall which protects themagainst being burned up and leaves the interior of the furnace free fromobstructions.

TheJ discharge eri-ds' of the Steam pipes are represented as 35 and 36in Fig. 2. I have found that in order to produce the necessary suctionpower it is not sufficient that these ends enter theair pipes near theirdischarge ends, but they must extend some distance beyond the crossingor the pat-h through the pipe section 5 or 21. Where the discharge endof the steam pipe barely crosses the opening through the pipe 5 thesuction force will be inadequate and I there fore extend the dischargeends of the steam pipes' several inches beyond the pipe 5 and let thenozzles extend several inches beyond the ends of the steam pipes. Theshort sections 5 and 21 will therefore be embedded a little deeper inthe front wall than the sections in the side and bridge walls, which, asstated, are preferably embedded about two inches from the inner wallsurfaces.

lith the pipes for conducting air extended and arranged as shown l amable-to produce jets of air from nozzles to bridge of sufficient forcewith the aid of a small jet of live steam, say, one-eighth inch open`ing through each of the pipes 28 and 30 for an air pipe two inches indiameter. The proportion of steam is therefore small, and whether thejets or blanket of superheated air and steam converts unconsumed carboninto carbonic acid or colorless vapor by consuming the carbon orpreventing its formation, the construction and arrangement herein shownhas been fully demonstrated as an actual smoke preventative. Denseclouds of very black smoke have been almost instantaneously convertedinto colorless vapor when the device has been put into operation. Afterthe bed of coal has been coked or become incandescent of course it isnot necessary to operate the device except for the purpose 0fintensifying the heat of an incandescent mass of coal, bv aiding thedraft, etc. The stratum of superheated steam and air provides, as itwere, a cover or additional hot side which also serves as an endlessconveyer or apron carrying @if the gases of combustion promptly andvclearing the burning area of coking gases.

While the simple construction is shown in the drawing as successfullyoperating in the ordinary form of stationary boiler furnace, theinvention is not in its embodiment restricted to that form. Steamboatand locomotive furnaces have different forms as to the arrangement ofbridge-wall. Fur naces which have no bridge wall have, however, theequivalent for the purpose of this invention so far as concerns a placewhere the gases of combustion leave the furnace to enter the smokestack. The absence of a bridge wall would necessitate a rearrange mentof .air-pipes toobtain the same results herein shown and described andinvolving sufficiently heated air as pure as it is found in the ash-pitas distinguished from. air" taken from the furnace above the grate bars,sufficient prolongation of the pipe to get the air heated withoutburningup the pipe, a conduit arranged to give the necessary momentum and forceto the air currents so that they will do more than merely flow into thefire-place in larger or smaller quantities, the proper direction of theair currents in order to obtain the result herein disclosed asdistinguished from the universal theory of merely supplying air to thefurnace by other routes than the gratebars, the avoidance of saturationby steam or cooling by air which offsets in the way of additional fuelconsumption any advantages that may be gained in the way of smokeprevention or consumption, the proper mounting of the steam-jet withrelation to the air-pipe and steam-j et nozzle etc. None of theseelements may be neglected as in the prior art in making the presentinvention operative. If the steam or air jet, for instance, is directedto the base of the bridgewall the latter will be damaged by intenselylocalized heat, or clinkers will be produced, or both, and smoke willnot be prevented over more than a part of the burning area, if at all.

Having thus described my invention, 1 claim as new and desire to secureby Letters Patent 1. The combination with the vertical walls of afurnace, including a rear wall over which the gases of combustion pass,of an air pipe extending along and embedded in said walls, said air pipehaving its inlet near the forward end of the furnace and its outlet. inthe forward end, and means in said forward end for discharging al jet ofair over and close to the top of said rear wall.

'2. The combination with the front, side and rear walls of a furnace,said rear wall arranged to provide a passage thereover for the gases ofcombustion, of a pair of airheating pipes embedded in all of said fourwalls and crossing each other in said rear wall. said pipes arranged toopen from the ash pit and to discharge from the front wall in thedirection of the top of the rear wall.

3. The combination with the four walls of a. furnace, of anuninterrupted conduit for conveying air from the ash-pit to the frontwall of said furnace, said conduit arranged to be heated by all of saidfour walls, and means for discharging said air from said front wall intothe interior of'said furnace.

il. The combination with the four vertical walls of a furnace, of a pairof con tinuous or uninterrupted conduits opening, respectively, fromopposite sides of the ashpit of said furnace and Idischarging into theinterior of the furnace from out of the front walls of said furnace,said conduits paralleling every one of said four Walls, and ineans fordischarging jets of air from the front across the top of the rear Wallof Said furnace.

5. The combination with the four Walls of a furnace, of an air pipehaving an inlet end and a discharge end, said pipe paralleling` all ofsaid four walls to be heated 10 thereby7 and means for forcing jets ofair from said discharge end over the rear Wall of said furnace.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand in the presence of twosubscribing Witnesses.

OSCAR LUX. Witnesses CEAS. R. Lox, LYDIA S. Lox.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for ve cents each, by addressingthe Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C.

